University of Bremen: Even deeper insights into media action
The Center for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen has published a comprehensive update of its scientific research software. The apps developed provide insights into people’s media activities and the resulting digital traces.
Media offerings – whether digital or analogue – are an integral part of everyday life. We communicate, we inform and entertain ourselves through a growing number of media. Correspondingly, research into the ever more varied media behavior requires methodical instruments that determine a differentiated and revealing picture of the way in which people use the media to shape their everyday reality. The ZeMKI, Center for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen, has now published a groundbreaking extension of the research apps MeTag and MeSort, which are freely available to the scientific community.
MeTag is an app for detailed recording of media, data and technology diaries on different end devices. MeSort is a software application for sorting media and technology repertories, but also for Q-Sort and qualitative network research. This allows interactive and multi-level preferences in media use to be determined. In several years of development, the development team followed a cooperative co-creation approach that directly incorporated the wishes and ideas of future users into the development process. The major update of the apps that has now been released is an important result of this process.
New features in both research apps
Both research apps now have powerful and user-friendly user interfaces that clearly display all functions and enable professional scientific work. In addition, new features have also been introduced. These include, among other things:
• New, clear user interfaces and guidance
• Extension of project management, including usage
administration • Extension of data collection to include a function for recording and managing voice recordings
• Extension of different, customizable sorting methods
• Improvement of the display options for analysis results
The use of the research software is free of charge.